The House Guest

by Rosa Sophia

  ***

  Through all of the proceedings, Katherine reflected on her crooked lawyer and what she had learned from her cousin, Ike. Still, she knew Ryman was a good lawyer and she wasn’t about to let him know she had discovered what he kept hidden in his dirty past.

  Kat and Janis were escorted out of the building by Ryman, several guards, and a few policemen. Reporters and crowds of crime-buffs were shouting desperate questions at the young artist as she was led toward Janis’s jeep.

  Murder Suspect Goes Free on $10,000.

  Katherine Maslin, after being arrested for the murder of Jonathan Stark, was allowed to go free, but will return to the courtroom when more evidence has been gathered. Police along with the District Attorney agreed there wasn’t enough to hold the Souderton resident. Police and investigators are confident that they will find what they need to convict Maslin.

  ***

  Kat slumped onto Corry’s couch dressed in yesterday’s clothes. She had a bandage on her head and a small one over the cut beneath her black eye.

  “Want some tea, sweetie?”

  She turned her head, where she saw Corry filling the kettle in the kitchen. “No.”

  Jake sat down beside her and wrapped his arms around her. His touch felt distant to her and she couldn’t understand why.

  Janis took a seat across from her in a wide, plush armchair. “Corry, dear, I’ll have some tea,” she called out.

  “Okay.” The cupboard was opened. Cups were taken out. Corry retrieved a jar of honey and placed it on the counter. “Jake?”

  “No, thanks.”

  Jonny was sleeping beside the couch. He opened his mouth and yawned. It was so quiet Kat found herself focusing on the ticking of the antique clock that hung above the fireplace.

  “I’m calling out of work for a few days, Kat.” Corry stared at the kettle, watching steam rise from the top. When it was ready, she poured it into the cups. “I was thinking we could spend some time together, maybe go for a walk.”

  Kat hung her head. “I can’t go outside. They’ll swarm me.”

  “Well, then we can watch some movies, order pizza.”

  “No.”

  Corry brought the tea into the living room and set it on the coffee table. “Kat, I’m just trying to help.”

  “I know.”

  “We’re doing everything we can for you,” Janis assured her. “I spoke with the reporters when they asked me to. I told them they had the wrong woman. You’re not guilty of this.”

  “How can you possibly know that?”

  Janis smirked. “Trust me.”

  “They’re going to find something. I know they are. They’re trying to frame me.”

  “Who’s trying to frame you?” Jake spoke in a choked voice, as though he were trying not to cry.

  “I don’t know. A man wearing dress shoes in a house that has wooden floors.”

  Corry and Janis exchanged a puzzled glance.

  “I have an idea,” Janis said.

  ***

  At first, Katherine was against Janis’s proposal, but Corry convinced her. She was too tired to resist. A few minutes later, Kat lay down on the couch and Janis sat beside her in a wood-backed chair. Janis sipped her tea.

  “All right, Katherine,” she said. “Imagine that you’re in a hallway—”

  Kat’s eyes snapped open. “What the hell is this going to get me, is it going to keep me out of jail?”

  “It will help us learn more about what happened to you, Katherine.”

  “Yeah, okay.”

  Janis sighed. Kat closed her eyes again.

  “Imagine that you’re in a hallway, standing in front of a flight of stairs. Kat, I want you to walk down those stairs. There are forty-two of them. As you walk down, I want you to count each one. Understood?”

  “Yes.”

  “Okay. Are you walking down the stairs?”

  “Yes.”

  Even though she thought it was a ridiculous idea, she gave in. She did as Janis directed, and she went slowly.

  Less than a minute later, Katherine spoke. “I’m at the bottom.”

  “Okay. Now I want you to walk through a hallway. You’ll see many doors on either side of you, all of them leading to different rooms. One of these rooms will be the place you were taken to the night before last. I want you to see everything in that room, including who is there.”

  “Okay.”

  Despite her disbelief of the entire process, Kat opened a door. She stepped inside. She saw wooden floors and a fireplace. She saw herself, tied up in a chair. There were two men standing in the room.

  “Katherine, do you see your attackers?”

  “Yes.”

  ***

  The dingy hallway outside the apartment was completely silent until Kat began knocking on the door. An old woman shuffled from an elevator.

  “Looking for Frank?”

  Kat startled when she heard her voice. “Yeah.”

  “It might be a few minutes. He’s probably taking a nap.”

  “Thanks,” Kat muttered, but the woman had already gone into her apartment. The door slammed behind her and she was left alone again.

  A day had passed since her arraignment. After Corry had gone out to grab a few things at the supermarket with Jake in tow, Kat had left a note on the counter: I’m really okay. Don’t worry. I’ll be back.

  She had reformulated her plan, pulled her hair into a bun, stuffed it under a woolly hat and donned a pair of dark sunglasses. Then she’d taken Jake’s car and left the house. She had a lot of things to do.

  A few long minutes and several knocks later, Kat finally heard movement on the other side of the door. There was a click as a lock was released. Then a tired voice spoke.

  “Come in.”

  When the door was pushed open, Frank Ruth was already making his way back into the living room, tapping his cane across the floor.

  “It feels like ages since I’ve seen you last,” Kat said.

  “Only a few days.” The old man sat down in his armchair and sighed as he leaned his head back.

  “My sense of time isn’t what it used to be.”

  “That’s no surprise.” Frank picked up his sunglasses and placed them over his glazed, empty eyes. “Time is an enemy to most people, but to you it seems to be more of a—”

  “A trap.”

  “I’d say so. You sound tired. When was the last time you slept?”

  “The other night. But the sidewalk wasn’t as comfortable as I would have liked. And I couldn’t sleep much after they arrested me, either,” she replied. Frank opened his mouth to speak, but Kat couldn’t wait for his questioning. “I was kidnapped.” Her voice was shaky and filled with fear at remembering such an ordeal. “I know what they were after. They know that I know. Someone framed me. An anonymous tipper claiming to be a friend of mine called the police and said that I’d threatened to kill Jonathan.”

  “Oh, my God. I had heard, but…” Frank trembled as he leaned forward in his chair. A moment later, Kat was kneeling beside him, holding his hand. “It’s just so hard to grasp.”

  “They forged one of my paintings and wrote, I killed Jonathan Stark on the bottom. They’re calling it a confession.”

  “I heard that, yes.”

  “And in the time before they abducted me, I had been looking for…looking for John.” Under her hand, Frank’s muscles tensed. She leaned closer to him, as though she was afraid someone was listening. “I found him, Frank. I found him. And there was proof that Phillip did it, I know it. I found a paper. I don’t know how it survived.”

  “What did it say?”

  “It was my favorite line from Macbeth, the play Phillip and I read together when I was back in 1960.” She closed her eyes and remembered it. “Fair is foul, and foul is fair; hover through the fog and filthy air. It was typewritten,” Kat added, her eyes snapping open again. “Not from the book. He must have followed a whim and typed up his favorite line. He knew it was mine too. I mentioned i
t to him that summer, I know I did. I think he was connecting John’s homosexuality with my presence. Maybe he thought—”

  “That you made him that way? It seems plausible. Phillip was always in denial, looking for someone to blame. He loved Julie. For once, he found someone to blame other than her.”

  “Maybe he felt guilty about the way he treated her.” She had to force out the words. By now, Katherine was sure Phillip possessed a soul so torn and ruined there was almost nothing left of it. He didn’t care, and she didn’t think he ever had. She was convinced his love for Julie had been nothing more than a lust for control. “But I think that most killers—and God knows how many people he killed—want to get caught at some point. That could have been the reason for putting that paper there. Jonathan Stark had already been framed for killing Timothy Nyce. And everyone just assumed he had killed the rest of them. No one ever thought of Phillip. He was angry.”

  “Did you study criminal psychology?”

  “No, but my artwork is inspired by it. I read a lot of books on the subject. He craves something—punishment, congratulations, I don’t know what. But whatever Phillip really wanted, he certainly wasn’t going to get it by blaming everything on someone else. I talked to him. He doesn’t care anymore.”

  “He’s been in denial, all this time.” Frank straightened up in his seat. “He didn’t want to admit he wanted to be caught. If you’d said that to him, he would have denied it. Maybe now, he’s finally ready to admit he wants to be blamed for everything.”

  “For the attention. And he sure as hell isn’t getting much attention in that nursing home.”

  “But something in that theory isn’t right.” Frank leaned back. “He’s hiding something else.”

  “What makes you say that?”

  “Wouldn’t he have admitted it by now? Maybe he’s protecting someone.”

  “But who?” She relaxed into a cross-legged position and frowned. She almost had the answer, and now it was gone. “Maybe he’s protecting whoever killed Jonathan Stark.”

  “Why?”

  “Maybe he’s behind it.” Kat’s eyes grew wide. “He’s already got so many other deaths under his belt that one more would get him the electric chair. But…no. He wouldn’t care if anyone found out he sent someone after Stark, because according to my theory, he wants punishment.”

  “There’s something you’re missing, dear Katherine.” Frank took off his sunglasses again, and put them back on the end table. “And I hate to be such dull company, but I’m exhausted.”

  “And frightened?”

  “Yes. Just figure all this out, Kat, before it’s too late. Before someone comes after me. Before something happens to you.”

  Chapter 13

  Blood

  Allen Ryman picked up the old mug and set it carefully on his desk.

  “Damn it,” he muttered. He cursed even louder when he realized he’d glued the bottle of epoxy onto his hand purely by accident.

  The mug had broken a couple of weeks ago when he had dropped it during a disturbing phone call. It was his favorite mug—white with a black inside and a picture of a swordfish on the outside. He was trying to glue the handle back on, which was turning out to be more difficult than he suspected. Especially when he was trying to do it in his office. There were papers everywhere. Epoxy and notepads did not mix well.

  The handle had been broken into three pieces. Almost a week ago, he had managed to glue two of the pieces together. During that fiasco, he had gotten epoxy all over his desk and left work early because of it. Wednesdays had never been lucky for him. Oddly enough, he had always preferred Mondays.

  When the phone rang, Ryman had just managed to get the epoxy bottle off his palm. He tried not to curse again. His hand was sticking to the receiver.

  “Ryman and Dunne Law Offices,” he said irritably. Millie had taken the day off, so he was forced to answer the phones.

  “Mr. Ryman? It’s Katherine Maslin.” The voice on the other line sounded exasperated. “I was wondering if we could meet and discuss my problem. They haven’t set a court date yet.”

  “All right. Come into the office as soon as you can. I don’t have any clients to meet with this afternoon.”

  “Okay. I’ll be there.”

  “Goodbye, Ms. Maslin.” Ryman hung up the phone. By the time he finally tried to release his hand from a tight fist, his fingers had already begun gluing themselves together. He sighed and leaned back, opening his hand and allowing the glue to crust on his skin.

  ***

  Insurance fraud. Mafia dealings.

  God only knew what else.

  A gun to the face. No big deal, right?

  The assailant was surprised to discover the smalltime lawyer had never once seen the business end of a gun, especially not this close to his brain. Since it was his first time, he had no trouble at all when it came to emptying his bladder all over his chair.

  “You call this a meeting?” he croaked.

  “Put your hands in the air, you pitiful piece of shit.” It was Katherine who held the gun, her long blond hair trailing down her back. She was garbed in dirty clothes and a furious disposition.

  “I know people don’t like lawyers, but this—”

  “Shut the fuck up.”

  Ryman’s lips were immediately sealed. Kat never once removed her gaze from his wet, wide eyes as she reached into her purse and pulled out a tape recorder. She set the device on the messy desk.

  “In case you hadn’t noticed,” she said coolly, “this gun has a homemade silencer on it. So if you do something I don’t like, I can kill you and no one will hear it.”

  “Are you n-nuts?” A stutter escaped his quivering lips as sweat dripped down his face. His hands were in the air, shaking. “They’d know it was you. You’re not e-even wearing gloves, you m-moron!”

  “You’d know a lot about killing people, wouldn’t you, Allen?” She grinned sadistically.

  It had been easy to acquire a weapon. She knew a man, an old friend who lived nearby. He wasn’t a totally law-abiding individual, which accounted for his knowledge of homemade silencers. She hadn’t seen him for years, but she knew he had a key under his front doormat for his girlfriend’s convenience, and it had been Kat’s luck that ensured the couple was still together.

  It had also been lucky that her old friend still went on a Florida vacation during the beginning of September. Kat had no trouble getting into the house and breaking into the gun cabinet in the bedroom. As was her style, she apologized in a thank you note, affixed to the refrigerator.

  “I need you to talk, Ryman.” She walked around the side of the desk and held the gun at his temple. Then she leaned forward and turned on the tape recorder. “I’m tired of this. I’m tired of running around, trying to find out what the fuck has been going on. I got kidnapped the other night, did you know that?” Ryman shook his head. “I didn’t think so. You know about the arrest, of course. And I’m betting you had more to do with that than I originally thought. You wouldn’t tell me the truth, would you? Unless I told you I would shoot you. What do you think of that, Mr. Ryman?”

  “I-I’m just a lawyer. You can’t prove anything.”

  “That’s bullshit and you know it. I know about your past. You’re a goddamn crook and that’s all you’ll ever be. The safety’s not on, Ryman. If I pulled the trigger, you would die. Right here, right now.”

  Surprisingly, he laughed. It sounded more like sobbing. “Great evidence. That’ll be wonderful in the courtroom. They’ll know you held a gun at my head.”

  “I don’t fucking care. Now, tell me, why did I find this by Jonathan Stark’s body?” A moment later, the note concerning Millie was shoved in Ryman’s face. He gulped. “This is yours, isn’t it? Let’s see, what does Allen Ryman’s handwriting look like? Hmm.” Her fingers moved carefully across the desk after she had put the note back in her pocket. “Ah-ha. Look at that. It’s exactly the fucking same, you goddamned liar!”

  “Archie will be b
ack s-soon. He’ll call the cops when he finds out what you’re doing.”

  “You killed Jonathan Stark, didn’t you?” She wasn’t about to leave without her information. “I’ve heard about your thieving past. You must have dropped the note while you were riffling through Stark’s wallet for cash.” She pressed the gun forcefully against his temple. “Tell me the truth!” She moved the weapon a little to the right and pulled the trigger, sending a bullet right past Ryman’s head and into the wall. He whimpered. “That bullet could have been in your head. Are you going to tell me or are you going to die?” She hissed the words in his ear, her breath jaggedly caressing his skin. She hoped it was bad. She hadn’t bothered to brush her teeth in days.

  “All right,” he growled. “I’ll tell you.”

  “That’s better.” Kat moved the tape recorder closer. “Spit it out.”

  Ryman began to cry. It was the most obnoxious thing Katherine had ever witnessed. He was a grown man, weeping over his desk and at that moment, he looked like a child. “I just wanted to help my dad, at first.”

  “What are you talking about?” For the first time since she had arrived, Katherine was overcome with confusion. Suddenly, it was as if Ryman was talking to himself. He jabbered on as though he were in the middle of a therapy session.

  “…and he left, he just left. He and Mama never got along, never. They were always f-fighting.” Kat didn’t know what to say, so she just listened. “W-when I heard about what Daddy did, I-I changed my name b-back to Mama’s. I c-couldn’t handle it.” Ryman sobbed for a few long seconds. “Then I moved to Pennsylvania a-and I was looking for a job when I met Phillip.”

  “What year was that?”

  “1990.” He cried for a bit longer this time, and the room was filled with the sounds of his tears.

  “What was your last name before it was Ryman?” Kat said urgently. “Tell me.”

  “It was…it was Stark.”